1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally pertains to a system for servicing wells, and more specifically to a system that monitors various work at various locations.
2. Description of Related Art
Wells for drawing petroleum, water or other fluids up from within the ground periodically need servicing to maintain the well in good operating condition. Such servicing may involve pumping various chemical treatments into the well or replacing worn parts, such as tubing or sucker rods. Since wells are often miles apart from each other, the maintenance or service operations are usually performed by a service vehicle having special onboard servicing equipment, such as a pump or hoist for assisting in performing the work.
The service vehicle for chemical treatments usually includes several shipping tanks that each contains a different chemical for various treatments. Some examples of such chemicals include water, scale inhibitor, emulsion breaker, bactericide, paraffin dispersant, and antifoaming agent.
The service vehicle usually fills its shipping tanks with chemicals that are stored in several large storage tanks at a bulk storage station. When the liquid level in a storage tank gets low, a large tanker truck comes to the bulk storage station to refill the tank. With ongoing arrivals and departures of various tankers of different companies and various service vehicles of different companies, it can become difficult to monitor deliveries, withdrawals and inventory levels of the many chemicals at the bulk storage station. And for the companies that own or operate the various wells, it can difficult confirm that a particular service vehicle actually provided the correct chemical treatment for their wells.
Currently, there are systems being developed to help address certain aspects of this problem. For example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/945,924 (specifically incorporated by reference herein) describes a system that monitors the pumping operations at various wells. However, the system does not consider what occurs at a bulk storage station, and the system relies on an operator's ability to correctly identify the well being serviced. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/281,864 (specifically incorporated by reference herein) suggests a method of identifying various well sites. Although the method is less susceptible to operator error, it is not foolproof.